A giant crane hoists a 40-tonne chunk of turbine tower almost 60 metres in the air and then places it on top of a half-finished structure. What’s different about this project is that it isn’t made from the usual ingredient: steel.
Rather, start-up Modvion is building the tower out of wood, a material it says will reduce the carbon footprint by more than 90 per cent. This will be the world’s tallest turbine of timber when completed in the coming weeks, and then it will be sold to a utility supplying clean energy to local homes and factories.
Sweden has a rich heritage of using wood in everything from windmills to centuries-old churches, clogs, decorative Dala horses and even a skyscraper.
Modvion is drawing on that craftsmanship to disrupt a forecasted $40 billion tower industry, where the use of heavily polluting steel and cement hasn’t changed much in the past few decades, undermining the turbines’ environmental benefits.
“The world is facing a climate crisis, and we need to switch energy sources,” chief executive Otto Lundman said after watching the lift. “Wind power is one of the most efficient and attractive that we have. We increase that value further.”
While the blades and the machinery are industry standard equipment, the approach has attracted interest from some of Europe’s biggest energy companies. Vestas Wind Systems bought 15 per cent of the firm after seeing a smaller demonstration model, and Italy’s Enel Green Power reached a co-operation agreement.
Sweden’s Vattenfall is a partner, and Germany’s RWE signed a letter of intent in March to use Modvion’s wooden towers in future projects.
The planet’s original building material is making a comeback in the net-zero age, with timber high-rises, corporate campuses and Olympic Village housing all in the works. A 20-storey “plyscraper” opened in Skelleftea, Sweden, in 2021.
Even as the wind industry is suffering from cost increases, supply chain bottlenecks and financing problems due to higher interest rates, forecasts for growth are still huge as nations rush to meet ambitious plans for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Annual European onshore installations are predicted to surge by almost a quarter by 2030, according to BloombergNEF.
Wind additions will exceed 16 gigawatts for the first time this year, with Germany, France, Spain, Sweden and Finland propping up the estimate.
“We expect our collaboration to increase,” said Todd O’Neill, chief executive of Vestas Ventures. “Many of our customers have proactively inquired to learn how they can be a part of Modvion’s journey.”
That connection comes in handy. The generator on top of the timber tower will be a recycled Vestas V90 2-megawatt machine. The Danish wind giant also will supply blades to crown the structure, which will be 150 metres (492 feet) tall when finished.
Modvion’s project outside Skara, Sweden, is made from Finnish spruce that’s laminated for strength and protection against the elements and fire, and then curved into four pieces about 30 centimetres thick. The tower walls may get thinner in the future as Modvion refines the technology.
The modules are stacked on lorries at a factory in Gothenburg and then glued together on site.
The assembly process saves on future maintenance costs since the typical steel tower contains as many as 50,000 bolts requiring manual checks by workers. Modvion’s towers can be inspected by sending up a drone instead.
Yet it’s the numbers surrounding carbon dioxide emissions – both in manufacturing and operation – that give wood a significant edge over steel.
Steelmaking is responsible for about 8 per cent of the energy industry’s CO2 emissions, and decarbonising will require trillions of dollars in investments. By comparison, wood is a carbon sink and renewable.
Parts of Modvion’s factory are automated, with robots sawing notches into the ends of the modules so they can be slotted together like a jigsaw puzzle. Still, there’s also some old style carpentry going on.
During a recent visit, workers used a measuring tape, nail gun and hand saw to get the pieces just right. To scale up in the future, even more of the work would probably need to be done with machines.
The laminated lumber is stronger than steel at the same weight, so wooden turbines can be taller and support bigger blades (generating more electricity) while needing less reinforcement (saving on building costs), the company says.
Lundman declined to say how much the machine with the timber tower will cost. A standard 2-megawatt turbine is about $2 million, said Leo Wang, a wind analyst at BloombergNEF.
Enel expects significant cost reductions from using wood once a supply chain and economies of scale have been established.
“We are currently monitoring their development so that we are ready to use the technology once it will be available for large-scale applications,’’ said Nicola Rossi, head of innovation at Enel Green Power.
“Wooden solutions are promising, but the long-term benefits of a full-scale adoption of wooden towers in a commercial wind farm are yet to be assessed.”
Modvion, which bills itself as a tech company focusing on engineered wood, is the brainchild of David Olivegren, 56, a carpenter, boat builder and architect.
He developed concepts for wooden masts and tubes during his studies, honed his skills while renovating old houses and even built a small wind turbine meant to charge a converted Renault car.
The start-up, founded in 2016, has received funding from the European Union and the Swedish Energy Agency. Earlier this year, 125 million Swedish kronor ($11 million) were raised through a convertible note issue.
A capital round of €20 million ($21 million), raised primarily through equity stakes, should close in the first quarter of 2024, according to the company.
That will helping financing a 150 metre tall tower, which will support a 6-megawatt machine ready to generate electricity in 2025.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN MARITIME DISPUTE
2000: Israel withdraws from Lebanon after nearly 30 years without an officially demarcated border. The UN establishes the Blue Line to act as the frontier.
2007: Lebanon and Cyprus define their respective exclusive economic zones to facilitate oil and gas exploration. Israel uses this to define its EEZ with Cyprus
2011: Lebanon disputes Israeli-proposed line and submits documents to UN showing different EEZ. Cyprus offers to mediate without much progress.
2018: Lebanon signs first offshore oil and gas licencing deal with consortium of France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek.
2018-2019: US seeks to mediate between Israel and Lebanon to prevent clashes over oil and gas resources.
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
How to get there
Emirates (www.emirates.com) flies directly to Hanoi, Vietnam, with fares starting from around Dh2,725 return, while Etihad (www.etihad.com) fares cost about Dh2,213 return with a stop. Chuong is 25 kilometres south of Hanoi.
How to help
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
2289 – Dh10
2252 – Dh 50
6025 – Dh20
6027 – Dh 100
6026 – Dh 200
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FIXTURES
All kick-off times 10.45pm UAE ( 4 GMT) unless stated
Tuesday
Sevilla v Maribor
Spartak Moscow v Liverpool
Manchester City v Shakhtar Donetsk
Napoli v Feyenoord
Besiktas v RB Leipzig
Monaco v Porto
Apoel Nicosia v Tottenham Hotspur
Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid
Wednesday
Basel v Benfica
CSKA Moscow Manchester United
Paris Saint-Germain v Bayern Munich
Anderlecht v Celtic
Qarabag v Roma (8pm)
Atletico Madrid v Chelsea
Juventus v Olympiakos
Sporting Lisbon v Barcelona
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Nick's journey in numbers
Countries so far: 85
Flights: 149
Steps: 3.78 million
Calories: 220,000
Floors climbed: 2,000
Donations: GPB37,300
Prostate checks: 5
Blisters: 15
Bumps on the head: 2
Dog bites: 1
Racecard
5pm: Al Maha Stables – Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m
5.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup – Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,600m
6pm: Emirates Fillies Classic – Prestige (PA) Dh100,000 (T) 1,600m
6.30pm: Emirates Colts Classic – Prestige (PA) Dh100,000 (T) 1,600m
7pm: The President’s Cup – Group 1 (PA) Dh2,500,000 (T) 2,200m
7.30pm: The President’s Cup – Listed (TB) Dh380,000 (T) 1,400m
Disclaimer
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville
Rating: 4/5
Omar Yabroudi's factfile
Born: October 20, 1989, Sharjah
Education: Bachelor of Science and Football, Liverpool John Moores University
2010: Accrington Stanley FC, internship
2010-2012: Crystal Palace, performance analyst with U-18 academy
2012-2015: Barnet FC, first-team performance analyst/head of recruitment
2015-2017: Nottingham Forest, head of recruitment
2018-present: Crystal Palace, player recruitment manager
Poacher
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
The Settlers
Director: Louis Theroux
Starring: Daniella Weiss, Ari Abramowitz
Rating: 5/5
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
How%20to%20avoid%20getting%20scammed
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MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
MANDOOB
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
